Energized after the Thanksgiving holiday, our commenting system just got a huge upgrade. We have yet to figure out how to include scratch 'n sniff comments, but just give us a little time.... we'll get there.

Here's an easy rundown of how we've improved Livefyre for you after the jump.

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New Livefyre commenting system goes live today

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"Johnny Northside" | Wikipedia

A screenshot of the "complete and total victory" post on "Johnny Northside" after news of the verdict. At right, the Bill of Rights, where you can juuust make out the wording of the First Amendment.

SEE ALSO:
- John Hoff fined $60k for blogging
- Best Local Blog 2011: The Adventures of Johnny Northside
- Jerry Moore has a controversial past (COVER)

This morning, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that local blogger John "Johnny Northside" Hoff is off the hook for $60,000 in damages to the subject of one of his posts. "Hoff's blog post is the kind of speech that the First Amendment is designed to protect," Judge Jill Flaskamp Halbrooks wrote in the opinion.

The reversal comes a year and a half after a Hennepin County jury found Hoff liable, a decision that ruffled feathers among free-speech defenders.


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Livefyre makes commenting a cinch and starting a conversation even easier.

Welcome to the future. Today we roll out the red carpet on a new commenting system.

Simply put, using our old commenting system, Disqus, could be like trying to talk through a tin can on a string. Livefyre is like having a smartphone with all your favorite apps.

Let's introduce you.

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"We come from the land of the ice and snow ...

With our annual Best Of issue just around the corner, a strong contender for the state's Best Website has been created by an unlikely source: The Hells Angels.

We all knew they could ride bad-ass hogs, but who knew the Hells Angels were also geeky HTML programmers? This website could kick Hunter S. Thompson's ass!

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Something seems fishy about all these lists.

​It seems like there's another "city superlative list" every week (the latest making the odd claim that we're the "13th most lesbianish"), so we decided to try to put them all together into one comparative infographic.

These studies are popular with readers, hence their proliferation. Many of them were one-time studies. Some corroborate each other, as with Forbes' assertion that we are the most relaxed metropolitan area, while Portfolio.com asserts that the Twin Cities are the 3rd least stressful.

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Tony Webster says the online crash database violates Minnesota data laws.

​Last week the Minnesota Department of Public Safety disabled a database following an allegation that a security flaw left private information of Minnesota drivers "vulnerable" to public access.

Tony Webster, a web developer and online security researcher from Minneapolis, filed a complaint after discovering he only needed a driver's license number to unlock a wealth of data from a state crash report website, including a driver's insurance policy information, license plate number, home address, and other details related to past car accidents.

Webster says it would be easy for the wrong person to access this information, and he believes some of it violates state data privacy laws.

"If you're a victim of harassment, identity theft, domestic abuse, any of this information could be easily abused," says Webster. "And those are the people most likely to have your driver's license number."

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John Hoff exercised his First Amendment rights.

A jury has concluded that there was nothing untrue in "Johnny Northside" blogger John Hoff's writing about the alleged shady business dealings of Jerry Moore.

Then the same jury decided that Hoff's writing caused Moore to lose his job at the University of Minnesota, so it awarded Moore $60,000 in damages.

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Steven Hayward loves monster trucks.

​Paul Mirengoff figured it was okay to trash Indian spiritual beliefs and Mexicans when he complained on the Power Line blog about a Yaqui prayer delivered at the memorial service for the Tucson shooting victims.

But he also trashed his law firm's reputation among its American Indian clients. He got a very public dressing down. And he resigned from Power Line. In his place today: Steven Hayward.

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Photo via Wikipedia

PZ Myers doesn't meet the New York Times oh-so-high standards

University of Minnesota evolutionary biologist and outspoken atheist PZ Myers just doesn't cut the mustard, as far as the New York Times is concerned. His offense: Daring to call out corporations for seeking to influence scientists and science journalists.

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Dan Lacey

Dusty Trice with a pancake on his head

​The sounds you hear are the mourning cries of Michele Bachmann foes everywhere: Liberal blogger Dusty Trice, who wielded a video camera like sharp stick when it came to popping GOP balloons ahead of Election Day, is calling it quits.
 
Trice lampooned the always quotable District 6 Republican congresswoman on a regular basis.

"I was actually getting ready to close up shop right after the State Fair, but I was getting so much national attention from my videos that I figured I should stick around for a few more months," he says via e-mail.

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